We caught up with the brilliant and insightful John Jigg$ a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
John, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?
I can speak on my entire experience in the music industry as a whole. When you come into this business they try their best to categorize you or put you in a box. “He’s this type of rapper or he’s this type of artist, he makes this type of music” There was a time when my versatility actually became an obstacle because I can go from traditional Boom Bap type styles to more modern commercial type of music so it made it more difficult to target a specific fanbase. However over the years I have learned to use my creativity to my advantage.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I am a professional hip-hop artist, digital content creator and entrepreneur. I am originally from Long Island, New York but I have been living in Atlanta, Georgia for the past three years. I have toured all over the United States as well as Europe performing for large crowds. I have also worked with the likes of Benny the Butcher, Ras Kass, PMD of EPMD Smif N Wessun, Keith Murray, Grand Daddy IU, Shabaam Sahdeeq and the list goes on. I have been featured on Sway in the morning, Shade 45, Hip hop DX, XXL Magazine as well as many major FM radio stations across the country.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Last year around this time my main Instagram account @john_jiggs was hacked. I tried very hard to get it back at the time but was unsuccessful. I then started a new page which I quickly built up to over 2K followers. Then just a I actually was able to gain access to my original account which had over 8K followers so now I have both pages with a combined following of 10K followers all different people on both accounts. if I had given up then I would’ve lost a good portion of my following but I kept working on getting my account back and now I am able to keep my business rolling
Have you ever had to pivot?
The moment that sticks out to me most is making the move from New York to Atlanta three years ago. When my wife and I decided to make this move we were not sure what was ahead or how it would go. It was definitely a lifestyle change from what we were both used to, being native New Yorkers. It was not always easy but we stuck with it and now we are we are enjoying a quality of life that only gets better every year. If we did not have the courage to take a chance and move to a new place we may have never been able to build this beautiful life that we have.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/78QHKPfBuCIOfZarepegUD?si=Eic-D43kTAqjx4E2W0VtiQ
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_jiggs/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/jjiggsny/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jiggsthegreat?lang=en
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCPfmab4vOwUHreQXd9kw-GQ
Image Credits
Shock B